Naengmyeon rivalries and bomb dosiraks: The food stories of Korea's independence fighters

We see the world through food. Welcome to Middam, a column about delicious stories.

[Photo = Dosan Ahn Chang-ho Memorial Foundation website, Getty Images Bank]

Amid the gunfire and desperate struggle for independence, there was one thing that brought comfort to Korea's liberation fighters: food. Like anyone else, they were ordinary people in front of a good meal, and the pleasure of eating well was a genuine source of happiness. Food also served as a balm for the longing they felt for home and family while living far from their homeland.

Independence fighter Kim Gu. [Kim Gu Memorial Association]

Kim Gu, who led the independence movement, was said to be a devoted fan of naengmyeon. During his years in exile in Shanghai, where he headed the Provisional Government, he once slipped away — even amid the constant threat of assassination — to attend a wedding at the invitation of an acquaintance who worked as a ticket inspector, squeezing in a quick bowl of naengmyeon before hurrying back.

In 1948, Kim traveled to Pyongyang to negotiate directly with Kim Il-sung in a bid to prevent the division of the peninsula. There, he turned down the food provided at his lodgings and went searching for the city's best naengmyeon restaurants instead. Accounts drawn from the memoirs of his aide Seon Woo-jin describe Kim eating naengmyeon at a Pyongyang naengmyeon restaurant and asking the owner about their livelihood.

Ahn Chang-ho, who hailed from South Pyongan Province, was equally famous for his love of naengmyeon. One well-known anecdote holds that while Ahn was serving time after his arrest by Japanese colonial authorities, a prison guard ordered naengmyeon for him as a gesture of kindness. When Ahn and Kim Gu met, the story goes, the two men would each polish off two bowls.

The ties between independence fighters and naengmyeon run deeper still. The activist Yi Tak, after completing his studies at the Guangdong Military Academy and slipping back into Korea via Fengtian (present-day Shenyang) in Manchuria, purchased a naengmyeon restaurant in Sukcheon-eup, Pyeongwon County, South Pyongan Province, and used it as a domestic contact point for the movement. Ahn Du-hui, who would later assassinate Kim Gu, crossed into China in 1941 and ran a naengmyeon restaurant in Xuzhou.

The table that fed the independence movement

[Photo = Ahn Jung-geun Memorial Association, Getty Images Bank]

The food of the independence fighters naturally reflected the culinary cultures of wherever they were active. Those operating in China ate Chinese food, while Korean laborers in the United States cooked with whatever ingredients they could find locally.

One dish associated with independence fighter Ahn Jung-geun is Harbin guobaorou — thinly sliced, deep-fried pork coated in a sweet-and-sour sauce that remains a signature dish of Harbin to this day. It was not his favorite food, nor did it carry any particular happy memory for him. It was simply what he ate frequently while preparing for his act of resistance in Harbin. This year, Cheong Wa Dae served Harbin guobaorou as a special dish to commemorate the anniversary of Ahn's death.

Ji Bok-yeong — a daughter of General Ji Cheong-cheon, commander-in-chief of the Korean Liberation Army, and an independence fighter in her own right — was fond of congyoubing, a Chinese-style scallion pancake made by layering dough with green onions and oil before pan-frying. Ji had moved with her family to Manchuria in 1924 to escape Japanese surveillance and spent much of her life in China, becoming fluent enough in Chinese to pass as a local. For her, congyoubing was no foreign novelty — it was simply part of the world she had grown up in.

An Hye-sun: the independence fighter at the stove

[Image = North Jeolla Province Eastern Veterans Affairs Office]

One person took it upon herself to keep the independence fighters fed. That was An Hye-sun, the wife of independence activist Mun Il-min. Born in Uiju County, North Pyongan Province, An moved to China with her older brother due to her family's difficult circumstances. In 1928, she married Mun Il-min in Beijing and settled in Shanghai, where she supported her husband as he devoted himself to the independence movement.

She took charge of preparing meals for the key figures of the Provisional Government and other independence activists. Her cooking was apparently exceptional — Ahn Chang-ho was said to have often remarked that "Madam An's cooking is the best."

An Hye-sun is also the person who made the dosirak that concealed Yun Bong-gil's bomb. On April 28, 1932, ahead of the attack at Hongkou Park, Kim Gu called on An to prepare a dosirak. On the day of the attack, however, word came that one of the dosiraks should be left without rice or banchan. That box held the bomb Yun hurled at Japanese Shanghai Expeditionary Army commander Shirakawa Yoshinori and other officials.

An Hye-sun should not be remembered simply as someone who cooked. She was, in every sense, another independence fighter who supported the movement from behind the lines. The Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs described her contribution as "a practical struggle to save the families of independence fighters and to save our people in their time of hardship." She fought on an invisible front.

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